


The Vengeance Factor

by beepbeep4



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M, Genocide, Suicidal Ideation, and yuta is a mass murderer who deserves better, episode: s3e9 The Vengeance Factor, will riker is an earnest menace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 16:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30092076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepbeep4/pseuds/beepbeep4
Summary: William raised his eyebrows. “You speak in riddles.”“I’m sorry. I’ve never been good at conversation.”William just smiled, slow and warm, as though what she’d said was sweet or interesting, rather than an admittance of her basic interpersonal ineptitude. His eyes were such a brilliant blue, and Yuta realized with horror that she was smiling back.
Relationships: William Riker/Yuta
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	The Vengeance Factor

Only five survived. 

The extermination was systematic and ruthless. The Lornak rolled in with their bombs and guns and dragged people out of their homes, pushed them to the ground and shot them in the street. They executed children in front of their mothers, and then executed the mothers. The streets grew slick with blood and viscera. They bombed houses of worship, libraries, and schools, so that the historical record would forget the Tralesta, too. 

It was a total annihilation of people and memory. Smoke rose from the bodies and rubble of the Tralesta, curling up and disappearing into the sky. 

But five survived. Covered with the blood of their families and sick with grief, but the breath still, impossibly, moved through their lungs. When they cried, they heard each other, moving through debris and bodies to grasp each other’s hands. That had to count for something. 

Yuta was twenty-five at the time of the Tralesta massacre. She could still remember the other four survivors: Axane and Mucir, both somewhere in their forties; an elderly man named Orno; and Usni. Just a little kid, god, Usni, their chubby cheeks streaked with blood and ash, their eyes dark and flat. 

The initial relief of finding each other quickly dissipated. There were moments when Yuta wanted nothing to do with them, ugly moments when she resented with every cell in her body that these were the people she was stuck with, when she wished she could trade their lives for those of her family’s. They were clan, but what use was clan when your family was dead and rotting in the rubble of your childhood home? 

Those moments always subsided eventually. The other four were not the enemy; they were all she had left in the world. 

Somehow, they managed, forming something of a family. In those first days, they sorted through debris and bodies and found a mostly undamaged basement to live in. They kept each other fed and watered as best they could with meager food packets. They all slept in one room, too afraid to leave each other’s sides. They took turns screaming in the middle of the night. They tried to keep Orno comfortable; without his medication, his hands trembled and he hallucinated. Sometimes saliva dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. Yuta pretended not to notice. 

Mucir gestured with a box of chalk he found: “Usni, you want to draw with me?” 

They all tried this from time to time, these feeble attempts at engaging Usni in age-appropriate activities, guided by some misplaced sense of responsibility for the child’s neurological development, which had to already be fucked all to shit. Usni just shook their head slowly and kept their back pressed against the wall, their expression shuttered. 

For her part, Yuta chewed on the inside of her cheek and stared at the ceiling. She fell in and out of sleep, ignoring the hard black gnaw of her stomach and caring little for anything happening around her. She wasn’t particularly ambitious for anything more than that.

Axane and Mucir were the ambitious ones. They ventured out of the basement every day to dig through the debris and bring back what they found: some changes in clothes, bits of soap, scraps of medical supplies that the Lornak hadn’t managed to destroy. 

The real miracle, though, was salvaging a replicator, one that was only a little beat up. Orno tinkered with it with trembling hands for days, and when it finally lit up, a little hot shock of joy shot through the ice of Yuta’s heart. Even Usni smiled a little when they sipped from a cup of hot chocolate, the first warm thing any of them had had in weeks. Yuta looked around at everyone, faces growing pink over their steaming cups, and swallowed down the happy sob that clawed up her throat.

Securing a reliable source of food and water would seem like a net positive, but Yuta quickly grew to regret it, as it made room for the emotions she’d rather not be having. 

She lost hours staring at the cracks in the wall, the points where they stuttered and branched. She studied them and replayed the massacre in her head, trying to find some point of weakness in the chain of events where she could have intervened and changed everything. Traded her life for her mother’s. Or her brother’s, or her cousin’s; she ran through countless different configurations in her head of how it could have gone differently, how she could have somehow sacrificed herself and saved everybody.

Warn the Tralesta officials days in advance of the attack—no. No one had any warning. This scenario only worked if she could time travel. 

Gather up her mom and brothers and send them fleeing for the forests as soon as she saw the Lornak swarm like ants down their side of the mountain —maybe, but she couldn’t leave her friends behind to get slaughtered, her aunts and uncles and cousins and her dad across town. She’d never manage to round them all up in time. 

Sneak up on a Lornak soldier and cut their throat with a piece of glass from her bombed-out house and take their rifle—no. She might be able to take out one Lornak, but then she’d face a hundred more barrels aimed straight for her. 

Grief coated her tongue and made everything taste like corpses, though that could be just the smell of the bodies outside. The floor was cold and hard beneath her. Yuta could make the cracks in the wall look like all sorts of things: a dead spindly tree. A hand with long, ghastly fingers. An animal with three broken legs. Somewhere in the shadows, Axane moaned in her sleep, as though in pain. 

Looking back, life before the massacre was so obviously paper thin, a cruel illusion. She was an idiot for having assumed that it would just continue forever. In that fantasy once-life, Yuta had been a daughter and a sister, a musician and a shop worker and a friend. All of that was gone now, had crumbled through her fingers like ash. She was nothing, she was no one at all. 

She wanted to crawl back to where her home used to be and press up against her mother’s corpse and die there. She wanted to replicate a phaser and eat a plasma beam. She wanted to chew on a brick and spit out her teeth. She wanted Orno to stop babbling in the corner, and she wanted Usni to stop looking so pitiful, and she wanted Axane and Mucir to stop trying so damn hard to keep them all alive when it was obvious they should be dead, too. Yuta wanted to die so badly. There were moments when she thought she actually was dead, but her idiotic soul just hadn’t yet figured out how to leave her body. Her heart was so heavy in her chest that it felt like her entire body would collapse into it like a black hole. No person would withstand this. There was no way through this. 

Everyone Yuta had ever loved was dead. When she laid down to try to sleep, Yuta imagined their eyes frozen open, gazing blankly into the night sky like dead stars. 

Yuta would never know for certain why Axane had chosen her, but Yuta liked to believe that she saw something special in her. Something not-dead enough to be worth cultivating. 

It was a nice thought. It gave her something to do other than staring at the wall, anyway.

Axane had been a scientist before the massacre. She laid out the medical supplies she’d gathered and replicated everything else she needed. “Here’s what we do,” Axane began, and described the parameters of their experiment. 

Yuta had never been particularly interested in science or medicine, but she flew to it now like a moth to a flame, taking comfort in the repetition of experimentation. Try one chemical combination, write down the results. Adjust something, and write down those results. Measure at the meniscus and remember to tare, on and on and on for weeks. Yuta kept at the work long after everyone else had gone to bed, blinking through the tiredness in her eyes. 

Finally, they synthesized the microvirus, shining in a clear tube. Axane held it up so that the liquid caught the light coming through the cracks in the wall. A tiny spark lit up Yuta’s spine. 

She was flattered when they chose her to carry the virus. The idea of having a purpose was appealing: a chance to step out of the fog of grief and take some kind of new shape; a chance to be something else.

Yuta laid flat on the cold lab table when they administered the hypo. They all waited as the virus soaked through her fat and muscle. The jelly of her eyes trembled with its malice before settling back into place. Her heart shivered in her chest. Her tongue spasmed and then unfolded, new, in her mouth. Her arteries seized and then relaxed. The virus teemed at her fingertips and swam through her cerebral fluid. Her bodily systems were slowed to a fraction of their natural pace. Everything, down to her tooth enamel and sliding entrails, stripped and remade for one purpose. It felt right, to have her body transformed for this new world where she had no family, no home. It was an honor; it was a mercy. 

Axane was at Yuta’s side, tears in her eyes, when she woke up on the morning of her new life.

“You are our last prayer, Yuta,” she said, her voice thick. 

Yuta had seen the great dark hole in her mother’s skull, wet and pulpy like fruit. She’d pressed her face into her cooling neck and screamed.

Yuta gripped Axane’s hand. It felt so warm in hers. “I will fulfill it. I swear to you.”

The virus would kill anyone with Lornak DNA with a single touch. That was what Yuta was now: a tool of biological warfare. A living weapon. 

After the procedure, Yuta found a mirror and took a good, long look, tilting the glass this way and that. She didn’t look any different: same limp blonde hair, same purple shadows beneath the eyes. She tapped her front teeth with a nail; maybe they were a fraction harder. She pressed her fingertips to the skin over her cheekbones and pressed hard; maybe she could feel a tiny bit of a malignant spark. 

The virus made the job simple and clean. But in that moment, sitting in the dirty basement, the smell of death everywhere, Yuta had so much rage inside her that she would have been happy lining up all the Lornak in a row and ripping their throats out with her teeth, one by one. 

The procedure a success, the last five Tralesta left the basement. They traveled into greater Acamaria, assimilating into different communities there and keeping their identities secret. Yuta’s body stayed frozen in time, so she had to keep moving every few years, never staying anywhere long. The years passed and she watched the other four age and die, even little Usni. It only steeled her resolve: she was the last Tralesta in the world, their very last hope.

Activists and politicians successfully advocated for the official abolition of clans in Acamaria, citing their bloody history. What was left of Acamaria, which by this point consisted of the victors, was eager to put down their guns and move forward. Clans became a thing of the antiquated past.

Yuta didn’t forget. 

Yuta became many things over the course of her mission. She was a teacher and a transit operator and a maid and a midwife and a carpenter and far more besides. She slipped in and out of identities seamlessly, like water, taking the shape of whatever the situation required of her. She lived lightly, never staying anywhere long enough to plant roots. She needed nothing, wanted nothing. There was only her path, and whatever she needed to become to walk it. 

“Zolada Yoth,” said Yuta. “It’s taken a long time to track you down. Who lives this far up a mountain? Do you know what a chore it is for mail delivery to get to you?”

Zolada stood very still in her doorway, her hand still on the knob. Her skin was old and thin, dark purple veins thick and prominent. “And who are you?”

“Who do I look like?” 

Zolada eyed the stack of letters in Yuta’s hand. “Mailperson.” 

“Astute observation, absolutely brilliant. Here’s your fucking mail.” Zolada flinched when Yuta threw the stack at her feet.

“I don’t get mail here, though,” Zolada said. “I have it sent somewhere else.”

Yuta just smiled. 

“No, you don’t know who I am, do you, Zolada Yoth?” Yuta stepped into Zolada’s space. Zolada took a step back to maintain the distance between them, which gave Yuta room to shoulder into her home and get inside, closing the door behind her. 

“Why are you so far off the grid?” Yuta asked. “Are you hiding something?”

Zolada backed further into her home. It was a nice place, with high ceilings and wooden archways, tasteful portraits of flowers and fruits on the walls; she was living out her retirement in comfort. “Are you robbing me? Take whatever you want.”

“I don’t want your stuff. Let’s see if we can jog your memory, Zolada. Private Yoth, is that right?” 

Zolada was silent for a moment. “Lieutenant,” she said quietly.

“Lieutenant, pardon me. So, Lieutenant Yoth. Stardate 8390. Jamholt Region. Does that ring a bell?”

Zolada nodded slowly. 

“What happened that day, Zolada?”

Zolada swallowed. “We—it was a horrible tragedy—“

“Bullshit your tragedy,” Yuta said. “What did you do, Zolada?”

“I—we quelled the Tralesta.”

“Yeah. You quelled them all right. You quelled them real nice and good. Props to you,” Yuta grinned. It stretched her face terribly. “Very efficient work you did there. Do you have any idea who I am yet?”

Zolada shook her head. Her jowls quivered with the movement. 

“Do you know, Zolada, that I still remember the taste of my mom’s blood?” Yuta laughed, a horrible, metallic sounding thing. “After you Lornak assholes rolled out, I found her in the street with a bullet in her head. I just pulled her in my lap and got her blood all over me, I guess some got in my mouth.”

“This isn’t possible,” Zolada said. Her voice was so thin and warbled and Yuta wanted to rip it right out of her throat. “None survived.”

Yuta gestured to herself grandly: “I lived, bitch.”

“But you—god, you’re so young—”

“Modern skincare does amazing things,” Yuta said. “I’m curious, Zolada. What did you do when you left our dead bodies behind to rot in the sun? Did you go home and have a nice hot meal? Did you get drinks with your comrades-in-arms? Did you ever think about us ever again?”

Zolada was silent. And then: “Please—I have a family—“

“I had a family,” Yuta hissed. “I was a daughter. Don’t you worry, though, I’ll get to your family, too. You have sons, right? Grown, with families of their own?”

“Please,” Zolada said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Hm. Tempting. OK, I’ll make you a deal. If you say “long live the clan Tralesta,” I’ll let you go.”

“Long live the clan Tralesta,” Zolada said softly.

“Mm. You know, that doesn’t sound as good when you say it. What about, ‘I’m super sorry I killed your mom?’” 

Before Zolada could form the words, Yuta reached out with her palm and touched her cheek. Zolada exhaled and fell to the ground. 

Yuta stared at the body, and then turned and vomited in a potted plant. 

The virus made it quick, almost elegant. Minimal blood—maybe just a dignified trickle out of the nose. Easy. Simple. 

It had been a bit of a rush at first. In the early years, she’d linger afterwards to gaze down at the slain Lornak’s crumpled body, her modified heart pounding heavy and slow, the slush of her blood loud in her ears. Her flesh crawled with adrenaline. The tips of her fingers tingled where she’d touched them; she had done that, with just the press of her skin. 

She would never be powerless again.

Before long, she stopped feeling much of anything. She felt unbearably old, like she had been around since before time was invented. She was an undying thing, an abomination, a crime against nature. 

She was doing this for her people. For her family, murdered before her eyes. The Lornak were destroyers of life and deserved whatever hell she could rain upon them, and she was the only one who could do it. The virus was a miracle of science, one that they’d managed to engineer with only scraps of medical supplies and their own ingenuity. It alone was reason to take pride in and fight for their fallen clan. 

But she did find herself wondering, sometimes. Orno was too old and Usni too young, but why hadn’t Axane and Mucir also taken the microvirus? There had been enough for more than just Yuta, she was sure of it. 

What had the other four seen when they looked at her, waking up on that makeshift table slab after the procedure? In the following years, as they aged and she stayed the same?

She wished, sometimes, distantly, that she had someone else with her. Someone to share the burden.

It would have been nice.

“Oh, fuck,” Yuta hissed at the sight of the toddler.

In the early years of her new life, Yuta had killed only adults. It was just lingering humanoid weakness, that disgusting sentimental sludge still working its way out of her system. She’d looked upon the Lornak children in their Lornak homes and saw little Usni. She saw her little brother, dead under a building. It made her taste bile on the back of her throat and hide her hands behind her back. 

This, however, impeded mission efficiency. She would only have to find them again years later, after they’d grown up, to finish the job. She learned to just grit her teeth and do it right the first time around; it was easier that way.

At least all it took was a touch. She didn’t have to stab or shoot or eviscerate anyone; all the violence necessary lived in just the touch of her skin.

“What’s wrong with grandma?” The child had wispy brown hair. 

Yuta was woozy on her feet. “I’m sorry, kid.” 

This was okay. She was a weapon, and weapons didn’t have their own thoughts and feelings about what they did. They were sharpened and dirtied and cleaned, but feelings didn’t enter into it. 

Yuta wiped a bit of vomit from the corner of her mouth, took a deep breath, and approached the child. 

Sometime in the 24th century, Yuta started yet another life, this time as the Acamarian Sovereign’s servant. She wore high-necked dresses and grew out her pale hair. She cooked and tasted the Sovereign’s food before determining it free of poison and generally kept her comfortable. It was dull work, but Yuta didn’t mind. It would bring her closer to the last two remaining Lornak: both were members of the marauding Acamarian outlaws, the Gatherers, with whom the Sovereign would soon be negotiating. Yuta would get them alone, and then, her purpose completed, she would finally rest.

She hadn’t counted on meeting William. 

William was a terror. He was like no one she’d met before. He was a Human on the Federation starship that would be mediating the Acamarian conflict with the Gatherers, and he was open, and smiling, and warm. His face lit up when he saw her. She had no idea what he could have possibly seen in her to provoke such a response; it was terrible. He would find her whenever they were in the same room together and pull her aside to talk when she was in the middle of _work,_ dammit. As a cover for being an assassin, but still; she was on the clock, here, and didn’t he have work to do, too? Commander of a big fancy starship? 

Apparently not. When he saw her, he dropped whatever he was doing and went to her side, eyes sparkling blue. 

He was just so eager. He latched onto the first thing they had in common, which was the fact that as life forms, they both had to eat food, and used that as the basis for their friendship. _What foods do you eat, Yuta? I, as well, eat food. Can I program any Acamarian recipes in the replicator for you? Can I try some?_

Against her better wishes, some of his warmth somehow trickled inside her skin and touched her heart, the one that she hadn’t thought she’d still had, the one that confused her to feel after so many years, like a cold steel knife melting in its handle. 

As a general rule, Yuta didn’t entertain friendships or relationships. Sure, she could mold herself into the basic shape of whatever anyone needed along the way—anything to get her closer to another Lornak descendent. She could be a romantic partner or confidante at the drop of a hat, but real feelings never factored into it. She had trained herself out of such vulnerabilities. 

This was different. This wasn’t molding herself into a shape; this was something far more sinister that bloomed from somewhere deep and dark inside her own self, like a horrid, bright red fungus.

Fraternizing with the diplomats wasn’t a part of the plan, but William wanted to meet with her for dinner in Ten Forward. She was a good assassin who adapted well, so she agreed. Who knew--William might even prove useful down the line. 

“Don’t you get tired being a servant?” He asked. Yuta suppressed a scoff. This was a man who had only known endless choices, who had always had the world wide open to him. She was a special case, she could admit, but even she knew that servitude wasn’t about preference.

“I’ve always been a servant,” she lied. “I don’t know anything different.” 

“Not with me, you’re not,” William grinned, pointing his fork at her. “We are equals, here.” 

_Obviously_ , Yuta wanted to say, _obviously I’m not your fucking servant, being one person’s servant doesn’t mean being everyone’s servant, you stiff-laced diplomat imbecile,_ but she was smiling despite herself. He was so frightfully earnest; she couldn’t help it. She had an appalling desire to reach out and touch his beard. Rub her cheek against it, maybe. Such thoughts made her want to lock herself away; she looked down at her plate until they passed. 

“The Sovereign treats me well,” she said finally. “I have everything I could want.” 

“But what about freedom?” 

He asked the question so easily, his eyes trained on hers. He meant it in the context of her supposed servitude, she knew, but she thought about her mission. What would freedom even mean to someone like her? It wasn’t something that ever occurred to her to want. She had her path; that was all there was. 

Freedom wouldn’t avenge her people. She was alone, the last. If anything, she had been all too free after the massacre: no home, no family, nowhere to belong, just a drifting flesh-sack in a dead world that couldn’t claim her. Though it had mutated her cells and tied her down to her fate, the microvirus had also given her a purpose, a way to keep moving through the world. What would she have done without it? Her stomach twisted at the thought; it would be like the ground dropping from beneath her feet, a life doomed to suspension in the shapelessness of grief, no way forward or through. 

“I can never have that,” she said finally. “My path is all too clear.”

It wasn’t her best work. Normally, she was better at deflecting and telling people what they wanted to hear. But in the heat of William’s gaze, all of her skills fled her brain.

William raised his eyebrows. “You speak in riddles.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never been good at conversation.”

William just smiled, slow and warm, as though what she’d said was sweet or interesting, rather than an admittance of her basic interpersonal ineptitude. His eyes were such a brilliant blue, and Yuta realized with horror that she was smiling back.

The fact that it had taken her one hundred years to get to this point might indicate otherwise, but Yuta was good at her job. While the Sovereign and the Starfleet diplomats were busy negotiating a truce with the Gatherer pirates down on Gamma Hromi II, she’d crept in the corners like the creepy insect she was and got one of the last Lornak alone. Volnoth, his name was. Just before she brushed his face, she leaned in and whispered, “I may be the last of my line, but my clan will outlive yours.” 

His eyes widened, and then stilled. She did not close them for him. 

There was only one left, now. One more Lornak, and the last prayer of Tralesta would be answered. Yuta was hot with adrenaline, pacing the halls of the Enterprise, energy rippling beneath her skin. She had been on spacecrafts before, but never anything like the Enterprise. It was huge. It had an arboretum and a bar and a holodeck and Yuta was rapidly beginning to suspect that these people didn’t do any work at all. Its hallways were luxuriously wide as she stalked through the ship, raw as a twitching nerve. She kept her eyes down and walked like she knew where she was going and no one questioned her. Eventually, she stopped at a module in the wall.

“Computer,” she said, waiting for the chime. “Where are Commander William Riker’s quarters?”

It showed her a map, drawing a line from her current location to William’s door. Just like that. Didn’t ask her for authentication or anything. 

She turned down the hall, walking a little faster. She couldn’t say why she was doing this. It was probably because she was insane. There was plenty she should have been doing instead. Plotting an assassination was old hat for her by this point, and a Gatherer was by no means the greatest challenge she’d ever encountered, but this was the very last one. This was what she’d been building towards for a hundred years. Everything needed to happen perfectly.

There was just this—itch at her fingertips. This energy teeming at her skin, and a need to put it somewhere. 

She came to William’s door and just stood there for a moment, holding her breath. She mustered her courage—she was an assassin, for fuck’s sake, this was shameful—and pressed the bell. 

“Yuta,” William said when he let her in. “What a lovely surprise.” The lights in his quarters were dimmed and Yuta noted the lines at the corners of his eyes; he was dead tired. 

“I’m disturbing you,” Yuta said, moving to leave.

“Not at all.” William gestured her inside. “I’m glad you came.”

It didn’t sound like he was lying. Even through his exhaustion, that irrepressible warmth of his shined through. What must it be like to just move through the world like that? To see something as vile and gnarled as Yuta, and treat it with such—warmth? Was this how he looked at twisted pieces of scrap metal, too? 

Yuta shifted her weight, looked at her hands. That surge of energy from killing the Lornak prickled up and down her arms. “The Sovereign gave me the night off,” she said, and she was pleased that her voice sounded level, even subdued. “I thought I would come see you.”

“What a charming idea,” William said warmly, stepping closer. Yuta’s breath caught; he was so tall. When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “what other ideas do you have?” 

His shoulders were so broad. God, she liked to look at him. She could feel her cheeks start to flush. Yuta had been with men before, but it wasn’t until now that it occurred to her what might be so appealing about them. It was mortifying: what might his chest feel like under her palms? Did he ever change out of his uniform, or was this all he wore, all the time, even when off duty? 

He was standing in front of her, smiling. Waiting. Unable to stand it anymore, she stepped forward and kissed him.

Yuta associated touch with killing. Even if she wasn’t touching a Lornak, everything she did was carefully calculated to get her closer to one. It was purposeful and precise. This—this was different. This was—his mouth, moving against hers, warm and soft. William made a quiet sound at the back of his throat and it made Yuta press against him, wanting to get closer. He smelled warm and clean. 

After a moment, he wrapped his arms around her, and Yuta made a wounded noise that she didn’t even know she was capable of making and just melted into him. He slid a hand into her hair and a restless heat twisted up her back. She was starving, she realized, absolutely starving for this. Her very skin lifted to the touch, shameless and obscene. She wanted to do whatever William wanted, to be whatever he wanted, just so the touching wouldn’t stop.

Since when was this something that she was capable of wanting? Since when did she want anything at all? Her body was nothing, meant absolutely nothing to her. It was a tool, a weapon of war, pounds of meat and muscle to incubate and transport a virus. But now, she only wanted to lean into the solidness of William’s chest, to let him hold her up; she wanted him to look at her always and see her as something other than what she was. She broke away from the kiss to gasp, marveling at the press of his hands on her back. _Never stop touching me,_ she wanted to say, senselessly.

“Tell me what you want,” she begged, squeezing his shoulders in her hands. The muscles flexed under her touch; she wanted to sink her teeth into them. “I’ll do anything you ask.” A purpose, a chance to be something other than a weapon, something _good_ —

“Wait a minute,” he’d said quietly, holding her away. His brow furrowed and Yuta wanted to press her thumb to it, smooth it away. She leaned in for another kiss, but his grip tightened just a little, keeping her at bay. 

A cold wash of dread slid down her back. 

“I don’t understand,” Yuta said. “Don’t you want me to give you pleasure?” She wasn’t unfamiliar with men. She knew how to be what they needed. She could be good for this, good for William. If she could just get on her knees, she could make him forget any of his hesitations, she was sure of it. 

“Not as a servant,” William said quietly, pulling away. “I told you, I prefer equals.”

Her throat tightened. “Even in matters of love?” 

William gave a sad smile that Yuta couldn’t quite parse. “Especially in matters of love.”

Yuta wrapped her arms around herself, because if she didn’t, she would disintegrate into embarrassing chunks of flesh and emotion right there on William’s floor. She couldn’t be anyone’s equal. To be an equal, you had to first be a person, which she wasn’t. She was a weapon, a monster. Reciprocity wasn’t what she was made for. 

Tears sprang to her eyes and she turned to face the wall so she could school her features. The sobs were silently piling up in her throat, making it hard to breathe. 

“Yuta,” William said from behind her. “It’s not—you’re beautiful, and charming, and I like you very much. I only want to make you as happy as you want to make me. You’re entitled to that.”

Yuta had seen a lot in her long life. She’d seen the world die around her and a smoking empty shell rise in its place. She’d seen piles of abandoned bodies that she’d known and touched and loved bloat and burn in the sun. She’d been broken and remade. Death was her constant companion, and she bore it well. 

But this felled her, cut her off at the knees. She wanted to turn and cling to him like a pathetic worm, clutch at his uniform and hold onto all that certainty he embodied. Entitled to happiness? She was a poisonous thing that slithered in the dark and wept over a gentle touch; she was entitled to nothing.

“No,” Yuta said, disgusted with how her voice trembled. “I’m not.” 

He came up behind her and touched her shoulders. She wanted a meteor to crash into her, or a blade to spontaneously appear in the air and plunge into her heart.

“I do not feel pleasure or passion,” she said, nearly choking on the words. “I haven’t been able to for a long time.” The truth of it was such a wretched thing inside her. The loneliness of a hundred years bore upon her and she nearly buckled under the weight. 

William turned her around and he—he cupped her face in his hands, like it was something sweet, something precious. Her soul felt as though it was shattering within her.

“I don’t know who did this to you, or why.” His thumb brushed against her cheekbone. It made her want to fall to the ground and beg for mercy. “But it can change.”

If he had thrown acid upon her, or cast some horrid curse, he could not have hurt her as much as this lie did. William lived in a world of possibility, a world that Yuta could not reach. 

“I wish it could,” she said, the most damning thing she’d ever admitted in her sorry life. 

William pulled her in and pressed her head against her chest, wrapping his arms around her. Yuta should have disentangled herself and fled. She was compromised; the mission was compromised. But she shuddered into his warm arms, letting him enfold her into a kind of sanctuary, so grateful for the solid sureness of him that it was a disgrace.

Then the klaxons blared, and red lights flashed, and William gave her one last look before rushing from his quarters, leaving her alone. 

Yuta sank to the floor. Allowed herself one shaking sob, then pushed the heels of her hands hard into her eyes until she stopped crying. This was foolish; she was a fool for coming here. There was nothing that William could give her that she had the ability to receive. Kind words spoken to a sharp blade only fell on cold metal, dead and useless. 

She stood up. Shook out her hands. Wiped the tears from her face. Crying was for children. Like Usni, little Usni, cheeks round and eyes flat as flint and who never cried even once—

Yuta dug her nails into her palms. She had a mission to finish. Then, she could resign from this sorry world forever. 

She didn’t know how William figured out her identity and she didn’t care. She was so close to the end. They were at the negotiation table, the Sovereign and the Gatherers just about to sign an agreement to end hostilities, Captain Picard presiding. Chorgan was right there, the very last of the Lornak clan. One touch, and it would be done. Ever the obedient servant, Yuta was carrying a glass of brandy over to him when William beamed into the room.

“Tralesta? There are no more Tralesta,” Chorgan had said when William explained to everyone who Yuta really was. 

Yuta just smiled, cold and slow. 

“Back away slowly, Yuta. The wars are over.” William said, phaser trained on her.

The ignorance of the statement threw her for a moment. Like hell the wars were over. Even if they were, Commander William T. Riker of the Starship Enterprise, Human and all of thirty-five years old, wasn’t going to be the one to inform her. Her existence was evidence that the wars weren’t over: the microvirus shimmering inside each of her cells, lying in wait. The blood of her loved ones a stain on her heart. The sound of their screams ripping her out of sleep every night. 

“You cannot understand,” she said to William. Her tone was quiet and measured, still every bit the Sovereign’s assistant, but she was spitting mad. Her breath came in tiny, hot puffs from the back of her throat. Fucking Starfleet diplomats. Inserting themselves where no one asked for them, when she had a century-old mission to finish. She’d been doing this since long before William had even been born; his interference was an insult. 

But when Yuta looked to William, something inside her softened at that open, earnest expression on his face: this sweet idiot really thought there was another way out of this. A part of her wanted to protect him, to shield his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see what came next. She hadn’t known that any part of her could be that soft after all these decades slinking in shadows, her cells teeming with malice.

“You’re right. I can’t,” William said, “because I’ve seen the part of you that regrets what you’ve become. Listen to me,” he beseeched her, eyes wide and blue, “you don’t have to do this anymore.”

Regret had nothing to do with it. There wasn’t any room in her for regret. There was only the plan, singular and clear. The plan that every cell in her body had been built for. 

“I have no choice.” 

Everyone was very still in the conference room, watching this play out. William held her gaze, and the warmth there, the naked faith that she’d make the right choice, made her want to flay off her own skin in long strips. 

“You do,” he said. 

Of course he’d think so. He was a Starfleet commander on the finest ship in the fleet; his life had been nothing but opportunity and achievement. He could never understand what it was like to see the world die around you and have to take the only path that presented itself, no matter how shitty. The memory of the other night rose up in her mind like a bubble in a rancid pond, when William had said she was entitled to happiness. Yuta didn’t even know what happiness was, wouldn’t know the first step to finding it. She felt nothing and wanted nothing. She was dry and cold inside, a dead and dusty planet. 

That wasn’t entirely true. Gathered up in William’s arms, in his kindness, she’d seen a tiny glimmer of another future. A version of a life where such feelings might be possible. 

But she had not handed over every cell in her body just to be undone by a few kind words. 

The cup of brandy trembled in her hand. Her neck was hot under her thick lavender collar. Chorgan was sitting not ten feet from her. The tips of her fingers tingled, deadly cells swarming at the surface of her skin, recognizing Chorgan’s DNA and leaning towards him. With William’s phaser—and his pleading gaze—still on her, she couldn’t move, but maybe if she threw the glass--would the lingering skin cells from where she held it be enough to kill?

She was the sword of Tralesta, flying on the waves of some forgotten sea after everyone else had long averted their eyes. It wasn’t over. It mattered. Her family, her people, had mattered. 

“William, I’m sorry,” Yuta said. She meant it. 

She moved towards Chorgan. 

A hot blast hit her in the abdomen. She cried out and held herself up on the table. No one moved to help her. Chorgan was leaning away in his chair, eyes wide. Out of the corner of her eye, Yuta saw William turn up the phaser setting.

She took a breath and staggered forward again, her hand outstretched, and a white flash of pain shot through her body before the ground rose up to meet her. 

Yuta woke up in sickbay, her head pounding. 

“—superficial damage only,” a red-haired woman in a blue overcoat was saying. “She’ll be just fine.”

“Good,” came William’s voice. “Listen, Beverly, do you think we could—”

“Chorgan,” Yuta choked out. She leaned up, shuddered at the slice of pain through her abdomen, and collapsed again. “Give me Chorgan.”

William wheeled on her, his face carved with anger. “Chorgan is no longer on this ship.”

Fuck. “Fuck,” Yuta said, and began to weep. Stars were exploding in her head. William opened his mouth, but no words came out. There were none to be said. Except: “You should have killed me,” she said between sobs. “You should have killed me.” 

William sank into the chair next to the bed and put his head in his hands. 

The next time Yuta woke up, the lights were dimmed. The chair was empty and there was a glass of water and a cookie next to the bed. She sat up, wincing just a little at the ache in her abdomen, and tentatively picked up the cookie. 

“You’re awake,” the redheaded woman—Beverly—said, making a note on a PADD. Yuta chewed on the cookie. It was good. “I’m Beverly Crusher, CMO. How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Yuta said. 

“How’s your head? You hit it pretty hard on the way down.” 

“My head’s amazing. Can I go?” 

“Afraid not,” Crusher said. Yuta looked around the sickbay; no one else was here. They hadn’t even restrained her. She started to move her legs over the side of the bed. “What I mean is,” Crusher continued, “there are a few people who need to speak with you before you leave.”

Crusher was strategically positioning herself in the way of the exit, which was cute. Yuta could have her neutralized in five seconds flat. “Who needs to speak with me?” She asked.

“The captain. Your Sovereign.” Crusher smiled apologetically. Yuta just leaned back in the bed and eyed her. “And frankly, Yuta, your readings are fascinating,” Crusher said. “I’d love to keep you for a few more tests.” 

She was very obviously stalling. She’d make a terrible assassin. But Crusher was pretty, and seemed nice, and wasn’t a Lornak or a diplomat, so Yuta indulged her. 

“I’m programmed to assassinate Lornak,” Yuta said. “There really isn’t much more to it than that.”

Crusher tapped on her PADD, and then angled it so Yuta could see a complicated-looking diagram. She glanced over it, and then looked away; it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. She’d helped design it, after all. “This virus is really ingenious,” Crusher said. “It knows to target a very specific DNA strand and not others—has it ever accidentally killed a non-Lornak?”

Yuta shook her head. Never. The virus was perfect, worked perfectly. 

“Amazing,” Crusher breathed. “Especially when all Acamarian DNA is so similar, nearly identical.” Yuta scoffed, but Crusher went on. “It’s totally integrated into each one of your cells—skin, bone, blood, brain, everything—and it’s parasitizing them for its basic building material, but it makes you stronger, not weaker. That phaser blast should have knocked you out for far longer than it did. Your cells are dividing at a remarkably high rate. And the proteins here are, to use the medical terminology, completely off the wall—”

“Do whatever you want, doc.” Crusher beamed and brought over her medical tricorder.

“So, what exactly have they told you about me?” Yuta asked after a moment. Crusher was running the scanner along the length of Yuta’s body, making notes as she went. 

“It doesn’t matter what they told me. As your doctor, my first duty is to you. Not the captain, not your Sovereign. You.”

Yuta laughed a little. “You might want to rethink your allegiance. I’ve done bad things.”

Crusher paused. “That may be so, but that doesn’t change anything here, as far as I’m concerned. You’re my patient. I see pain, and I try to heal it, no matter whose pain it is.”

Yuta chewed on that while Crusher worked, holding various beeping instruments to Yuta’s body and writing down the readings. The sickbay lights were cold and bright, the recycled air dry in Yuta’s lungs. Her hands itched; she needed to get to Chorgan. Chorgan, so close, mere steps away; she should have just aimed a glob of saliva towards him and been done with it, so _stupid—_

But when she closed her eyes, she didn’t see Chorgan. She saw William with his head in his hands. William with the phaser pointed at her, his eyes wide and blue and pleading. That hot flash of betrayal when he fired. 

Yuta realized with horror that she was crying, tears running down her temples and into her hair. 

“There, you’re all done. Got everything I needed,” Crusher said quietly, putting the scanners away. She rummaged around for a minute and then came back, handing Yuta a tissue. She blotted at her eyes and then worried at the tissue in her hands, tearing it into thin shreds. She took a deep, shaking breath.

“Find anything interesting in your readings?”

Crusher tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear. “I’ll have to spend more time with them,” she said, “but aside from your modified cellular structure, I’m also seeing abnormal readings of your catecholamine, serotonin, and amino acid neurotransmitters. Your hippocampus has a reduced volume, and your amygdala is unusually active. All of these readings are consistent with post traumatic stress disorder, which isn’t surprising, but I’m interested in how the virus interacts with your neurology—whether it exacerbates your PTSD symptoms, and how it interacts with your nervous system.”

“PTSD,” Yuta said flatly. 

Dr. Crusher smiled. “That’s my diagnosis, or at least the start of it. Likely from witnessing crimes against humanity and being biochemically engineered into a weapon of war.”

“And committing my own acts of war.”

“That too,” Crusher agreed. 

Crusher’s communicator beeped. “Picard to Crusher.”

She tapped her commbadge. “Crusher here.”

“Status on the patient.”

Crusher glanced at Yuta. “She’s awake.”

“Good. The Sovereign and I are on our way.”

Yuta slumped back into the bed. The virus gave Yuta many amazing abilities. She had more strength and speed than the average Acamarian, and lived for far longer, and could kill a Lornak with a single touch. It could not, however, let her be spontaneously unconscious whenever she had to talk with diplomats or government officials, so in the end, it was actually pretty useless.

Captain Picard and Sovereign Marouk swept into the sickbay, Picard in his Command red and the Sovereign in her long golden robes. Yuta felt something deflate inside her and realized with embarrassment that she had hoped that William might come. 

_He shot you, you idiot._

Right. 

The captain and the Sovereign came to stand at her bed, both frowning down at her. Crusher busied herself at her monitor. 

“Yuta,” Picard said. “You’ll understand that we three need to have a conversation. Ordinarily, I would want to afford you the dignity of waiting until you were back on your feet, but there’s an urgency here that I don’t think we can delay.”

“I understand, captain.” In fact, she preferred it. Damn the conference rooms and bottles of fine brandy; let them see her languishing in the biobed. Let them see who no one had ever been able to kill. 

Picard took a breath and straightened his shirt. “Right. First, I want to make sure we are on the same page on what’s transpired. It is my understanding that the five survivors of the Tralesta massacre engineered a virus that targets Lornak DNA. Is this correct?”

“It is.”

Picard nodded. The Sovereign clenched her jaw and said nothing. 

“And over the last hundred years,” the captain said, “you have used this virus to kill hundreds of Lornak. This includes both those who were guilty of the Tralesta massacre and those who were civilians.”

“All Lornak bear the guilt of their forefathers,” Yuta said.

The Sovereign made a noise of disgust. “This is ridiculous,” she said, throwing her hands up. “These are ancient names. No one even thinks of themselves as Lornak or Tralesta or any other clan anymore. We are Acamaria now, Yuta. You would do well to catch up.”

“A hundred years ago is hardly ancient, Marouk,” Picard said. The Sovereign opened her mouth to respond, but Yuta interjected.

“Of course no one thinks of themselves as Tralesta,” she said, “because the Tralesta were murdered.” She summoned all her remaining scraps of dignity to say, “and yet we live. I am Tralesta, and you will see me, Sovereign.”

“You’re Tralesta,” the Sovereign said between her teeth. “Fine. You can be Tralesta or a Ceti eel or a lamp, for all I care. But the days of blood feuds and inherited guilt are long behind us. They are barbaric, and antiquated, and have no place in our society.”

Fury, cold and silent, trickled down Yuta’s spine. She glared up at the Sovereign.

“Sovereign, perhaps we should—” Captain Picard said.

“No, she’s right,” Yuta said. “I don’t have a place in Acamarian society, since the Lornak butchered my people.” 

“Gah!” The Sovereign threw up her hands. “Yuta, I am very sorry for your loss—“

Yuta scoffed. Even the captain seemed to wince at that, though it might have been the glare of the overhead lights.

“—I _am_ , it is terrible, what happened to the Tralesta is a tragedy, but we have moved forward. We are a stronger, better Acamaria. The progress we’ve made is astounding. We’ve clawed our way out of a bloody history that many races never escape. We were just about to sign an easement of hostilities agreement with the Gatherers!” Her voice became shrill. “Do you have any idea how long it took to get to that point? You certainly should, as you were there at my side, waiting on my hand and foot the whole time!” The Sovereign paused to take a few breaths. The sickbay air was cool, but Yuta could see the greying hair starting to curl with sweat along her scalp. Her eyes were sharp and bright when she said, “you are dredging up the very worst parts of our history. We’ve moved on, and I will not have you dragging us back.” 

“If I may interject,” Picard said quietly. The Sovereign nodded, taking a moment to smooth nonexistent wrinkles from the front of her dress. “There is precedence in many peoples’ histories of a desire to move on from their mistakes and tragedies too hastily. This in itself isn’t a bad thing: they want to do better. Be better.”

Yuta groaned internally at his gravitas; was this how the captain always talked? Not just in sensitive diplomatic meetings, but in sickbay visits, too? 

“But if they don’t first adequately attend to the crimes committed,” he continued, “and if they don’t first make amends, progress can’t be made. It’s like putting a bandage over gangrene. You might not be able to see the wound anymore, but it still festers.”

“Only for her!” The Sovereign gestured to Yuta sharply. “And don’t forget that she has been hunting down and killing Acamarians for decades herself. Are we supposed to just forget that she has blood on her hands?”

“I will gladly face the consequences for my actions,” Yuta said. “I regret none of them.”

A silence fell over the room.

“Yuta will answer for her crimes,” Picard said, finally, “according to Acamarian law. That is your jurisdiction. Regardless, Sovereign, I believe you are proving my point. Yuta didn’t come up with this on her own. She isn’t pulling you back into a bloody past that your people escaped from, because this has never gone away. It has been festering. The Acamarian people have not yet dealt with it properly. On Acamaria, what do you have in terms of education about the Tralesta? What have you done to heal hostilities between clans? Not just declare them over, but really, truly heal?”

The Sovereign pursed her lips and said nothing. That was fine with Yuta; she wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. She was growing tired of the captain’s voice, too. She didn’t need diplomacy or understanding or Starfleet or healing. She needed justice.

“What will happen when I leave this sickbay?” Yuta asked.

Picard scrubbed at his face. “Sovereign?”

The Sovereign sighed and sank into the chair next to Yuta’s bed. “If she were to return to Acamaria, she would be tried in a court of law,” she said. “She’d be appointed an attorney if she did not choose one herself. I cannot say what the outcome would be. But frankly, captain, I don’t see how she could ever come back, even for a trial. The virus is active. As long as Yuta lives, Chorgan and any descendants he produces will be in danger. I cannot allow that.”

Picard glanced at Yuta. She nodded. 

“Captain,” came Crusher’s voice. Everyone turned to look at her, still standing at the monitor. “I am confident that I can synthesize a vaccine.” 

Dread settled cold into Yuta’s blood, wrapped tight around the muscle and cartilage of her throat. “No,” she rasped. No one looked at her. 

“How long?” Picard asked.

“It’s hard to say exactly, but I’m on the way to understanding this virus. Taking preliminary trials into account, I’d estimate three days.” 

“And it would render the virus inert?” The Sovereign asked. 

Crusher nodded tightly. 

Every gnarled part of Yuta screamed without sound. “No,” Yuta said again, louder. “I won’t take it.” The virus was who she was, was her only anchor in her entire wretched existence. She needed it. 

“Start working on the vaccine, doctor,” Picard said.

“But—“ Yuta began.

Picard turned to her, eyes flashing in a face smooth and still as stone, and the words died in her throat. “We won’t force you into a medical procedure against your will, Yuta. That’s not what we do around here. But we are generating options for you, ways for you to live a life. This is one of them. I suggest you think about it very carefully before rejecting it, as your other options are not looking fantastic right now.” He turned and nodded to Crusher. “Keep me apprised.”

The captain and the Sovereign left, and Yuta crumbled into tiny little pieces. 

“William,” Yuta said, an age later. “Can I see him?” 

Crusher nodded slowly. “I’ll let him know you’re asking for him.”

William agreed to meet with Yuta in his office. Once she’d bathed, eaten, and received medical clearance from Crusher, she was at the door, pressing the chime. When she entered, William was standing behind his desk in his Command red, his face carefully cleared of emotion. 

His office was sparse. There was a desk with a computer interface and an armchair against the wall, but not much else. Yuta got the impression that this wasn’t a room that William used often. It made sense: in her short time aboard the Enterprise, she’d always noticed him working in public spaces, looking up from his PADD to talk and joke with his crew. Ten Forward, the mess hall, conference rooms —anywhere he could be around people. 

He hadn’t wanted to see her in public this time. 

“I’m sorry for shooting you,” he said calmly. 

Yuta waved it away with her hand. “Whatever. William,” she said, and winced. “Commander. You have to get me to Chorgan.” 

William went to the window and stared into the void of space. He clasped his hands behind his back, which was straight as a rod. This wasn’t William: this was Commander Riker. From the side, she could see his jaw working. 

“I have to do no such thing,” he said.

“A runabout,” she pleaded, taking a step towards him. “I need a runabout. I’ll have it back in one piece within twelve hours, and then you can do whatever you want to me. Put me on trial, banish me to the Gamma quadrant, whatever—”

“No, Yuta.” William wheeled on her, his eyes flashing. Yuta clenched her jaw and didn’t flinch. She’d faced angry men before. William was no different. 

“I won’t help you kill an innocent man,” he said, which was just too much.

“Innocent!” Yuta almost laughed. She tasted bile on the back of her throat. “He is Lornak!”

William took a deep breath. Smoothed the anger from his brow. Against her will, Yuta remembered how his cheek felt against the palm of her hand, the way his hair slid through her fingers. “Chorgan didn’t kill your people,” he said. “His ancestors did. He didn’t do it, and he doesn’t deserve to die.”

“He is their clan,” Yuta spat. “He inherits the blood on their hands. This is what I was made for, William; this is my path.”

William looked at her carefully and said nothing. 

“The Lornak took everything,” she said. “Killed everything. I’ve been clanless, without home and without name, utterly alone. You can’t know what that feels like. I am a wound that won’t close.”

“Will killing him bring you peace? Will murder make it right?”

“I don’t care about peace. Fuck your peace. I care about justice.” Her fury was a bright ball in her chest. Yuta felt crazy, but that was nothing new. This was what happened when you were a gangrenous wound that no one else could see, festering green and evil for a hundred years. The world couldn’t hear her. It had moved on. She was a relic, a species gone extinct. 

William sank into the chair behind the desk, rubbing his forehead. “This virus,” he said quietly. “It kills anyone with Lornak DNA, right?”

“By touch.”

“And Chorgan is the last?”

Yuta nodded. 

William looked like he was going to be sick. “Hell,” he said, leaning back and gazing up at the ceiling. 

Yuta planted her hands on the desk. “I don’t expect you to understand the cultural nuances here, William. Most of my own people have forgotten. But this is what I must do. I am an unfulfilled vow. I am Tralesta’s last prayer. If I don’t do this, I might as well have died in the massacre with everyone else.”

“Did someone tell you that?” William lifted his head back up, eyes hot and metallic on hers. 

“It’s a statement of fact.” 

“That someone told you.”

Axane’s face, hovering over her on the lab table, swam through her mind’s eye. She said nothing. 

“Who were the other four?” William asked. 

Yuta glared down at the desk.

“You said there were four others who survived,” he pressed. “Why weren’t they modified, too?”

“I was chosen,” Yuta said carefully. 

William scrubbed at his face, and then steepled his fingers over his nose.

“Yuta,” he said after a moment. “You have been through something—horrible.”

“I recall.” 

“No, what I mean is—you’ve seen atrocities that no one should, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. The massacre, yes, but also what you’ve been through in the last hundred years. Hunting the Lornak down has hurt you, too. I can see it.” Yuta scoffed, but William continued. “You deserve - healing, and kindness. A chance to live a real life.”

Did William know about the vaccine? “I am not here to heal,” Yuta said coolly. “I’m a scientific miracle, a living bioweapon. I don’t have delusions about this; I am a war crime. There’s nothing beyond that.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s the truth, whether or not you choose to believe it.” 

William looked up at her. There was something pained in his blue eyes that made Yuta flinch, as though stung. “You can’t save me, William,” she said. 

He rubbed at his temples with his fingers. “I wish I could.”

“It’s nice of you.” Yuta smiled a little. “No one’s tried to save me before.”

William inhaled and closed his eyes. Yuta watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed once, twice. When he looked at her again, there was fierce determination in his gaze, unsettling and almost feral. “What if it wasn’t true?” He said. 

“Excuse me?” 

“What if you were wrong? What if you were more than a weapon?”

“It’s a moot point. I’m not wrong.”

William rose up from his seat with a disturbing glint in his eye, smiling a little. Yuta instinctively took a step back. 

“But what if you were?” He moved around his desk like a Terran shark circling its prey. “Play along, Yuta. Humor me. How much would change? What possibilities would suddenly open up in front of you?”

Yuta chewed on the inside of her cheek. This line of thinking held a high risk of emotional distress. Emotions were ghastly things. They struggled inside her like a writhing mass of living skinless arms, bleeding and grasping for purchase. She’d had more than a lifetime of practice of suppressing them, pouring wet concrete over them and letting it harden. 

Despair and anger were one thing: she could use that, weaponize it. But she had no room for hope or regret or whatever it was that William was asking for.

She deflected: “I don’t know, William, what if you weren’t a commander?” 

“Well. Hopefully, I’d be a captain.” William grinned. Yuta fought the urge to squint in the glare of it. “But if I wasn’t in Starfleet at all--I don’t know. I could study trombone. Teach at the Academy. I’m not a bad cook--maybe I’d open a restaurant. ”

A flare of resentment flashed through Yuta’s chest. It must be nice to have a life so large. She'd lived longer than most humanoids, but it was the life of a thin blade, cold and sharp and utilitarian.

“It is cruel of you to ask me this,” she said quietly. “There is nothing else for me.”

“But what if there was?”

“A stone cannot take flight,” Yuta snapped. “A flower cannot open its mouth and begin to sing. You cannot ask for impossible things.” 

“But I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a side of you that wasn’t weapon-like at all.”

“Then I did a good job deceiving you.” Something horrible was welling up in her chest. She tried to swallow it down, but it kept rising. She clamped her mouth shut so it couldn’t spill out. 

“I don’t think so,” William said. He took a step closer. Yuta felt like she was burning to the ground. “I think you felt something with me, the other night. Weapons don’t feel, Yuta. They can’t make a choice beyond what their wielder intends, either, but you chose to come to my quarters. You got close to me. You held me.” William’s voice broke just a little. “How do you explain that?”

“It’s called being an assassin,” she said weakly. “I was getting your trust—”

“Don’t lie to me,” he said softly. She could almost feel the heat coming off his skin, he was so close. “Not about this.”

“I—I don’t know,” she choked out, horrified at how her voice shook. She wished she could just rip open a vein and bleed all over the floor of his office so he could look at it and understand; it would be so much easier than words. “It’s so—William, you don’t know—it’s inside me, this—evil, it’s inside me—”

Smoke, and bodies, and a life unloved. Death, death, everywhere she went. 

He rested his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them gently with his thumbs. “There’s nothing evil about you,” he said. “Not a single thing. You’ve done bad things,” he allowed, understatement of the millennia, “but you’re not evil, Yuta.”

This tender, stupid little apple blossom. Yuta wanted to crumple to the floor. She wanted to disintegrate into a million tiny pieces. She took a breath, forced everything inside to be still enough to dredge up her next words from the rusted out remains of her soul: 

“I’m a mass murderer who can kill with a touch. There is no such thing as redemption or change or healing for me. I see all of their faces when I close my eyes, William. I remember all of them, even though no one remembers us, and you want to know something really funny?” She laughed, a short, harsh sounding thing. William flinched a little—good. “I don’t think I can remember my mom’s face. I can sometimes get little pieces of it—the corner of her eye, or a bit of her cheek—but I can’t put it all together. The hole in her head, though—I remember that perfectly.” Red and dark, matted in her mother’s hair, bits of bone and cerebral fluid leaking. 

William reached for her hand.

“I am what I am,” she said. 

“But that’s not all,” he said. His eyes were wide, blue, pleading. “That’s not all any of us are. Things can change.”

Nothing ever changed for Yuta. She was a sharpened blade, a thread in a needle, her purpose always so clear and damning. 

Except—

William holding her hand was different.

This tug behind her ribs was different.

And they shifted, and then he was holding her like she was—like she wasn’t a ticking bomb, like she was able to be held, like he wanted to be doing it—

Yuta didn’t realize she had been shaking until he’d wrapped his arms around her. She’d strap herself here for all time if she could. William leaned back against the desk, spreading his legs a little so Yuta could lean with him, and she was done for, raising a shaking hand to run her fingertips along his shoulder blade.

How could she want this so badly? She’d come in here to coerce a runabout out of William so that she could fly down to Acamaria and murder a man, but right now, nothing seemed more important than William touching her. She was out of her mind with it, pressing herself against him as close as she could. The fabric of his uniform was thick, but she could still feel the heat of his skin. She could feel him breathe against her. She sighed into his neck, and then tipped her head up. William held her gaze for a moment.

“Oh, hell,” he said, and dipped his head down, and kissed her. 

This—god. His mouth was gentle, moving softly against hers, more of a question than anything. She palmed at his hip, thick and strong under his uniform. They stayed like that for a while, just kissing, William leaning against the desk and holding Yuta against him. And then their tongues slid against each other perfectly, and Yuta’s mouth fell open around the tiniest of sounds, and he grabbed at her a little harder, and everything slipped into something urgent and hot and wet. She was all but climbing into his lap, had her hands all over him, murderous cells swarming at her fingertips. 

“Yuta.” He breathed this into her neck, running his hands along her sides. “What do you want?”

Yuta had no idea. She was not accustomed to wanting things. Nothing had ever felt like this. There were whole worlds here, blooming into existence across her skin and in her belly. Entire worlds of feeling that she never even knew existed, looming large and dark over some great horizon. 

“Just—touch me.”

William made a noise in the back of his throat. “Computer,” he said hoarsely. “Lock door and bar access, authorization Riker-Omega-3,” and he was sliding his hand into her hair and pulling her into a searing kiss. His beard scraped lightly along her cheek and her heart beat like a great drum in her ears. It almost hurt, being touched like this. She hadn’t known she could be touched like this. _Be cruel to me_ , she said with the palms of her hands sweeping over his shoulders. _Strike me down, grind me to a pulp under the heel of your boot, treat me as I deserve._

But William just held her, bumping his thumb into the dip behind her ear, opening his mouth under hers and kissing her again and again. 

Yuta got her hands under his shirt and spread them against his stomach, thick and muscled and everything she wanted. He was scorching hot, here, and she only wanted to get closer, only wanted more. She was feral, she was starved, took all her considerable self control not to gnash her teeth for it. She burned: she was one hot lick of flame. The unfulfilled vow, opening up other worlds, transfiguring her body into something good. 

She flattened her pelvis against his, the motion pressing William’s erection hard against Yuta’s hip. She sighed into his neck and ground herself against it. William let out a puff of air and dropped his head back. 

“You don’t have to--”

“Please,” Yuta breathed, not entirely sure what she was asking for, only knowing that this was perfect, he was perfect, he felt amazing. Yuta was not inexperienced in sex. It had been a useful tool in her one hundred years of sabotage and subterfuge and assassinations, but it had never been like this. His touch was an ache, his touch was a balm.

Their options were limited. There was a desk and the armchair and the floor; none were ideal. But Yuta thought it was perfect, she thought she could die just like this, grinding against William, her whole world narrowed to this. William was sweeping her hair over her shoulder and biting a kiss into her neck. He moved his hand from her collarbone, to her breast, down her stomach, his fingers pausing at the waist of her pants. 

“Can I—”

“Yes, yes,” Yuta said, tilting her hips back to give him room. William undid the button, kissing her neck all the while. He slid his fingers between her legs and groaned at the wetness there. 

“You feel so beautiful,” William gasped, hot breath fanning over her jaw. He moved his hand, dipping a finger down. “You’re like—silk.” Warmth fluttered in Yuta’s belly—since when was that a feeling she was capable of having?—and she tried to tip herself up, give herself a better angle to rub against his hand. She leaned her head forward, resting it on William’s shoulder as his fingers found their mark and rubbed, gently, everything slick and warm. A moan fell past Yuta’s lips.

“Right there?” William said into her neck, yes _, yes, there._ His fingers were skilled and true. Yuta’s body was singing, a tightness twisting up her spine. This desire was so new, so overwhelming; in that moment, she didn’t know anything else. She reached for him with the mindlessness of a virus, open mouthed and panting, wanting to cannibalize him for parts—his warmth, his ease, his certainty; she wanted it all. 

“Here, just—” Yuta leaned away and pulled William with her, pushed him towards the armchair. He went easily, with a grin, limbs loose and long, letting her sit him down and arrange him to her liking. Yuta shucked off her pants and climbed up, planted her knees on the cushion on either side of his hips so that she hovered above him, the air cool on her skin. He placed his hands on her thighs, rubbing his thumbs in small circles. 

In her mind’s eye, he grew talons and sank them deep into the muscle of her thigh.

In reality, he petted at her so sweetly she could hardly stand it. 

“We could move to my quarters—” 

“No,” Yuta said quickly. She wasn’t going to make it that long, didn’t want to lose this pleasure arcing through her even for a second. She cradled the back of his skull and held him against her chest. William kissed at her breasts through her shirt, and then moved his hand down and pressed a fingertip inside.

There were times when Yuta felt older than anything, older than the ash and dust that formed Acamaria. Now, a sweet burn spread across her skin, her organs and flesh, clearing the way for new growth. Under William’s hands, her body softened and she was made strange to herself. She could feel him smile against her, even through her shirt, and he sank his finger in deeper, thrusting it gently. Yuta pressed a thumb into his bottom lip, so plush and pink. He fit another finger in with the first and when he curled them—

“Oh,” Yuta said, a ragged thing, her spine arching. She reached down, thumbing clumsily at the clasp of his slacks. “Will you—”

William surged up and kissed her desperately. She worked his slacks open and pulled him out, red-hot and real, realer than anything. When she sank down, they both groaned, hands grasping for each other, fighting for every bit of contact, and William was so beautiful, beautiful blue eyes, beautiful in the way he moved, beautiful how he panted against her, his face open and sweet, strong hands supporting her by the hips as she braced herself with a hand on his shoulder and rode him hard. 

After, they stayed pressed together, Yuta slumped against his chest while William’s hand moved up and down her back. 

“Are you okay?” He asked. 

“Mm.” She pressed her fingertips into his swollen lips. They curved into a smile. “Do you do this with all the bioterrorists that come on your ship?”

William laughed softly, carding a hand through her hair. “No. Just you.”

Yuta rested her head against William’s chest, listening to his heart beat, red and human and true.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,” she said quietly. 

William rubbed her back and said nothing. 

Yuta surveyed the facts:

She’d failed to kill Chorgan. The Lornak lived. The last prayer of Tralesta went unanswered. 

She was space-bound in a Starfleet vessel.

She knew where they kept the runabouts. She was no stranger to grand theft auto, but had never attempted it on quite this scale. The Chief of Security on this ship was a Klingon. She did not want to cross paths with him. 

If she went home, she would likely be imprisoned for life at best. 

The virus coiled and curdled in her body, pointless and evil. She was nothing, she was a monster, a string of gibberish, a road disappeared. 

She was warm skin and taut desire and sliding hands.

She was very, very tired. 

She considered throwing herself out an airlock, but she took the vaccine. A tiny prick, and then nothing. 

“How do you know that it works?” She asked Crusher.

“It works.” Crusher tapped on her PADD and then showed her an image of one of her cells. “See? Reversed the mutation. Back to normal.”

Yuta didn’t know how to feel about that. 

The Sovereign gave her two options.

Yuta could return to Acamaria, but would need to stand trial. Her status as a refugee of a war a hundred years’ past would be considered, but odds didn’t look good for her acquittal. 

Or, she could promise to never return to Acamaria, and be left alone forever.

So, Yuta looked at her new life, planet-less and family-less, utterly without purpose or direction. Nothing in her blood but blood, nothing in her bone but bone, but the shadow of the virus and the hundred years of hunting walked with her still. Her memories were red and writhing and took up more space within her than she thought possible. It was claustrophobic inside of her, like a second body forced inside her skin. 

Never again would she feel Acamarian soil beneath her feet again. Never again would she breathe its air. 

She didn’t think she’d really breathed in over a hundred years, anyway. 

“You could stay with us,” William said one night. They’d just finished dinner in his quarters and he was standing behind her chair, massaging her shoulders. “We’re a science vessel. We travel all over the Alpha quadrant, exploring new life and civilizations.”

“You just…wander around.” She couldn’t imagine it: a life guided by curiosity, where every day held the potential for something new and beautiful. 

William laughed. “It’s a little more systematic than that, but yes, I suppose you could say that.”

“What would I do?” She let her head hang heavy as he worked his thumb into a knot. God, it felt good. 

“Anything you like. I can get you a set of your own quarters for you to live in. We have a greenhouse, and Ten Forward. The computer can get you any book or holo program you like. If you’re interested in science you could help out in the labs, after you’ve been trained. You could keep meeting with Counselor Troi.” 

Yuta had been meeting with the counselor for the last few weeks. She wasn’t sure if it was helping, but having someone to talk to was sort of nice, and she liked looking at her big black eyes. 

William found a particularly good spot and Yuta made a tiny sound of pleasure in the back of her throat. He pressed there a bit harder. “We have classes you can take on board. We can also drop you off on any planet or station you want - you aren’t trapped here. I recommend Risa,” he said, and Yuta could hear his smile in his words.

“The sex planet,” Yuta nodded at her lap. “I’ve heard of it.” 

A life, stretching before her. Stretching before Chorgan, who she’d failed to kill. She found herself struck with terror at its emptiness. What was she going to do? How was she going to fill her time? 

“What are you thinking about?” Riker had stopped massaging and was just cupping her shoulders. 

Language evaded her for a moment. “I’ve just never considered a future beyond the last Lornak,” she said eventually. For so long, her every action and thought had been laser-focused on this mission. Who was she, without a purpose? She was a dead end, a drop-off point into a deep, cold sea.

“Seems to me like you’re already doing an okay job,” William said lightly. “Eating a fine meal, getting a massage. You’re living like a real swell.”

Yuta turned to scowl at him. He just grinned, rubbing her shoulders gently, and then said: 

“A person isn’t supposed to be a weapon. You deserve the chance to be a person.”

Yuta didn’t know about that, but she would try. She had to.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in an attempt to salvage the ending to what I think is one of the most moving episodes in Trek history (and an episode that no one remembers except for me. Oh I remember). The issue is that the original ending - Riker killing Yuta so that she doesn't kill Chorgan - completely undercuts this incredibly vulnerable and beautiful moment that the two of them have in his quarters earlier, which I think sucks! 
> 
> I don't think I totally succeeded - it certainly is cleaner to just kill Yuta off than to actually deal with consequences or try and find a way for Yuta to be redeemed while staying alive - but I just love her so much and wanted to try. I hope you enjoyed! I think I have probably thought about this episode more than anyone in the history of the world! Cool! Bye!


End file.
